Group Photo

Rather than being a photographic work, Group Photo, General Pharmaceutical Preparationis more like a performance art piece conceived by the artist Wen Ye and implemented collectively by all the teachers and students of the class. In his early years, Wen Ye left his hometown in Liaoning Province, traveling over 3,000 kilometers to study at the foot of Sichuan's Mount Emei, where he spent four years. After graduation, he had little contact with his classmates. As he grew older, on the 30th anniversary of his graduation, he began to look back on those four youthful years: it was a process where he, along with his teachers and classmates, collectively shaped his identity. He hoped to reconnect with that period of time, his teachers, and classmates: he attempted to photograph them and organize a reunion where all teachers and students could participate. However, over the past three decades, he and his classmates had been scattered across China by the torrent of the country's monumental changes—as if a reunion was destined to be impossible. Thus, Wen Ye invited his teachers and classmates to mail him a pair of shoes they had worn. By photographing the shoes (as an extension of the body), Wen Ye reconnected everyone—realizing a previously impossible "no one absent" class reunion that spanned 30 years.

 

In Wen Ye's view, shoes are like human organs; photographing his teachers' and classmates' shoes is like photographing the lives they have walked. Critic Hai Jie commented on Wen Ye's Class 8, General Pharmaceutical Preparation: "When the lens drags these material witnesses from private storage into the public exhibition hall, the shoes are no longer just shoes but become a mirror of a generation's fate—corresponding not entirely to their expressions and names, but more to the unspoken wear and resilience forged through thirty years of social transformation."

 

Wen Ye once said that Group Photo, General Pharmaceutical Preparation tells a story of parting. On November 7, 2025, Wen Ye brought Group Photo, General Pharmaceutical Preparation back to his alma mater at the foot of Mount Emei. The work returned to one of the most important starting points in Wen Ye's life—the place where he and everyone once studied together. In that moment, he reunited with most of his classmates and teachers. Therefore, it can be said that Group Photo, General Pharmaceutical Preparation is no longer just about parting. Of course, following the reunion will be another parting, but this parting is different from the bewildered farewell of youth thirty years ago. This parting is a new departure, where Wen Ye and everyone together have created new memories.